I Will Never See

Original Slam Poem by DarlingDarkmoonsea (Sarah Lee Lankford). Please do not copy without giving credit.

I will never see my beauty for I see:

My self- my self loathing, self hatred, self harm, self destruction. My 'self's are the mechanisms I have learned to trust more than the words you speak, for those words were jokes made by another, and were lies by more.

My fear- my fear of dependence, of dedication, of liberation. My 'fear's were designed by the disorder crafted at the hand of my peers. These fears have become shackles binding me to the opinions of those I am more concerned with pleasing now rather than loving myself.

My thoughts- the negative, the memories, the decisions. My thoughts plague my mind like a monotone record player on repeat, playing through the broken speaker called my conscience. They chill every inch of my body like the foreign hands of acceptance digging into my broken and bruised body.

These idiosyncrasies have sculpted my perception of the real me.

I will never see the beauty many have described to me, for I see the real me, and the real me isn't pretty.

This does not mean I am not beautiful, for beautiful is a concept used to describe admiration. I do not think I am beautiful because I stopped admiring myself the day I stopped being myself.

The person I consider 'myself' was 8 the last time I saw her. She loved the spotlight and always shined brighter than the future her family hoped for her. She tuned out the world and listened to no one.

Finally, she stopped trying and turned up the volume of those around her. Here she is, 15 and now trapped in her own mind, wishing she was dead that way she can escape the person she has become.

She no longer sees her beauty when she looks in the mirror, only her past, faults and thoughts. She is left cowering in the shadows casted upon her once happy mind, no longer seeing, no longer free, no longer beautiful.